The invention relates to email and electronic communications and more particularly to facilitating collaboration on shared email messages.
There are many situations in which two or more people share responsibility for a single email inbox and communication stream. Such situations exist in several contexts, one of which is the collaboration that occurs between managers and assistants who share access and responsibility for the same mail file. Another arises when a single inbox is used for communication with a team or organization, and several people in the team must work together to be sure incoming messages are handled appropriately.
Collaborators who wish to make use of shared email inboxes need a way to coordinate their work, to discuss how messages should be handled, to know which messages have already been handled and be sure none are overlooked, and to see which are currently being worked on.
Current email tools were designed with the single user in mind. Users frequently make use of structures created for individual use to coordinate their shared work. For example, folders are used as a way to communicate priority or to indicate actions that should be taken, such as a “To Print” folder. Features allowing received mail to be edited are sometimes used to communicate additional information about a message or to report on how an issue had been handled. For example, users may annotate a message with comments or instructions for other users. Messages are frequently forwarded between managers and assistants as a way of drawing attention to them, and to discuss how they should be handled.
Such methods and systems are generally piecemeal and ineffective. Any policies established by the participants for collaboration exist externally to the messaging system, and therefore may be forgotten or ignored by the users. In addition, the provisions provided by the current methods are frequently incomplete and inefficient. A single message may be forwarded between parties multiple times to share annotations or to draw attention to it. Such schemes increase the number of emails that a user is required to handle and thereby decrease productivity. What is needed is a system and method for facilitating collaboration between users of a shared email inbox.